This invention relates to well drilling and completion equipment, and more particularly to well tools for running casing hangers and packoffs into, and for retrieving the packoffs from, subsea wellheads.
During the course of drilling subsea or other underwater wells considerable time is spent in running, landing and setting the casing and casing hangers in the submerged wellhead housing, and then retrieving the running pipe string and the running tool attached thereto for subsequent reuse. To reduce this costly time factor a substantial number of running tools have been designed and tested with varying degrees of success, but the industry is still in need of improvements over these prior devices.